


Enter In

by Gem_Gem, KittieHill



Series: Kittie And Gem Stories [28]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Dom/sub Undertones, Friends With Benefits, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Greg deserves good things, Greg is Sweet, Handcuffs, Jealous Sherlock, Kind of a threesome, M/M, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Open Relationships, Polyamory, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock is needy, Threesome - M/M/M, Top John Watson, safe sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittieHill/pseuds/KittieHill
Summary: “I am not 'always' naked at all!” Sherlock argued, tugging the duvet tighter around his hidden form. Not even his feet were visible. “Nor do I spend a fortune on clothes. I haven't shopped for more than six months. I have enough clothes. I don't need any more and detest wasting money.”“Ha! Yeah. Explain those fancy silk dressing gowns, then?” Greg retorted around a short chuckle, sharing a glance with John. “How many does he have again? Three? Four?”Sherlock sighed, “They are not all silk!”“At least four,” John agreed, happy to see a spark of enjoyment on his friend's tired, drained face, “He's often naked under those too. If he sits down and spreads his legs – which he does when he's in a bit of a mope – there's just this full-on view of his meat and two veg.”“I never hear you complaining,” Sherlock sniped back with a peevish, smug, sneering sort of smile, his cheeks flushing a light pink. He was irate, not embarrassed. John knew most of the different kinds of blushes that decorated his cheeks now. Knew when they may appear and even how to attain some of them if he really wanted to. “In fact, I remember, quite distinctly, how much you appreciated the view.”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Kittie And Gem Stories [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/323666
Comments: 19
Kudos: 91





	Enter In

“It was nice of Mike Stamford to invite me really,” Greg sighed as John walked him to the flat door, his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, jacket open and lapel fluttering in the harsh rushing wind.

It was freezing and John wanted to get inside, needed a hot drink to chase the chill of the month away, as did Greg, he was sure. Though judging by their conversation since leaving the event, John wondered if he needed to chase the chill of cold, miserable thoughts away as well.

“Even if you had to pester and remind him about it, I’m grateful anyway, you know? I had to get out of my place. Just for a bit. - And a vow renewal, as stupid and frankly painful to watch as it was, actually turned out to be quite, well, _fun_.” He shot John a grin at the admittance and gave him a fond elbow nudge, pressing closer to sidestep a huddled group of passers-by. John breathed in the familiar bitter scent of cigarette smoke and tried not to let the disapproval show on his face. “Despite being reminded I’m a sad, lonely, troubled bastard, who hasn’t got the smarts to forget his cheating ex-wife, I did enjoy it. It was nice to see how marriages are supposed to be. So for that, I thank you.”

John felt a pang of sympathy towards him. Greg deserved much better than the cards he’d been dealt, so much better. It was, obviously, one of the main reasons he had asked Mike if Greg could come to the renewal. John had thought that he’d just needed some time with his friends to remind him that he still had them, still had people who cared for him – even if his ex-wife didn't – and to, of course, show him how relationships were meant to be, to open his eyes to the difference of what love really was.  
  
“I was glad you came,” John said honestly, pulling out his house keys and slipping them in the lock, turning with a twist. The knocker was still skewed, that was a good sign. “Didn't really know anyone else except Mike and appreciated the company.” Pushing open the door, John motioned with a nod of his head to the interior and gave a welcoming smile, expecting the Inspector needed more comfort, more familiarity than the stale flat he'd been forced to move into. John knew how that felt. Knew what it was like being stuck in a trite environment with nothing but dark thoughts drowning every moment. “Coming up for a coffee?”

Greg hesitated, glancing upwards, eyeing the windows and puffing out his cheeks in thought, “I _should_ get back really... lots of paperwork to do and more to prepare for...” he mumbled, though he was squinting with a wince of dislike as each word left his lips. Clearly, he didn't want to go back to his life of loneliness and the blank, empty walls of his new home. “One coffee wouldn’t hurt though. I need the energy.”

“Good man!” John smiled, slapping Greg on the shoulder and then shepherding him into the hallway so he could close the door behind him, keeping the horrid biting wind out.

Unwinding the scarf from his neck, John waited for Greg to stop wiping his feet, finding his sudden timidness rather amusing considering how often he'd barrelled in on prior occasions, and then slipped around to head up the stairs.

“I'm sure Sherlock's still up. Probably in his mind palace at this time of night.”

“Ha! Yeah, or he’s experimenting on the neighbour's dead cat in the kitchen,” Greg snorted as he followed behind, patting John’s back and shoulders with friendly playfulness. “I really don’t know how you cope.”

“It's not all bad. Genuinely. He's been good for me,” John said warmly, looking back with a grin, “The work and… having someone who understands me. It's helped a lot. I hardly ever get nightmares any more.”

“Yeah,” Greg replied with some humour, thumping him on the arm in mock sympathy and laughing, “instead the nightmares are now waiting for you in the _fridge_!”

John let out a conceding sigh, unable to really argue with that point, and gave him a rolling shrug as they crossed the landing and walked into the kitchen together. A clear and clean and smell free kitchen. It was abundantly clear Sherlock hadn’t used it much, if at all, while John had been away.

“What the?--”

Greg pointed into the living room when John turned with a questioning eyebrow lift and there, bundled up on the sofa, hair a mess, and eyes narrowed, was Sherlock, body wrapped in his duvet. Completely concealed.

“Good evening,” John said letting the lifted eyebrow arch. “Everything okay?”

“You’re _late_ ,” Sherlock grumbled from his soft cocoon with a harshly rough and frustrated tone. “And you seem to have picked up a rather infuriating and _pathetic_ Detective Inspector on your way in.”

Greg huffed indignantly, “ _Hey_!”

“I didn't know I had an appointment to attend,” John returned sarcastically, already done with Sherlock's attitude and shooting him a stern, warning look. “Don't be horrible. We've had a lovely evening and would now like to have some lovely coffee. He's welcome in the flat whenever he wants, for cases or just for a visit.” Gesturing for Greg to take a seat in one of their chairs, John headed to the kettle to fill it up and switch it on with a click. “Milk one sugar for you, right?”

“Got it in one,” Greg nodded, strolling with purpose over to Sherlock’s chair, a smug and challenging smirk spreading across his face as he sank into it, glancing at the huddled, suddenly glaring, consulting detective. “What’s with the insulation?--”

“I’m cold,” Sherlock cut in briskly. “ _Obviously_.”

“Obviously,” Greg mimicked with a roll of his eyes, crossing his legs in a very accurate impression of the pompous man. “Perhaps you should have a coffee too then? Warm yourself up? - Though I’ve got to say, it’s perfectly warm in here, warmer than outside, at any rate.”

“Yes, well I’m _cold_. Cold and restless and now, thanks to you, highly displeased.”

“I'm making you one too, Sherlock,” John called out from the kitchen amongst the chorus of slight dins with the mugs, spoon and kettle as he prepared the drinks. He was quick, not willing to leave the two of them alone for too long if he could help it, and brought them through to the living room before Sherlock's glare became any harder. He planted down Sherlock's mug first, in arms reach of him, if he so chose to extend towards it. “Why are you restless anyway? I'm sure you could have found something to do? I had assumed you might continue doing that thing with the tadpoles that you started yesterday.”

“ _No_!” Sherlock exclaimed in a petulant whinge, that was becoming extremely commonplace, and dropped his head down into the hood of plush duvet waves. “Restless: unable to rest or relax as a result of anxiety or boredom.”

Greg gave Sherlock a resigned sort of scowl as he took his mug from John’s offering hand, “You mean you can’t sleep?”

John rolled his eyes and sat on his chair, crossing his ankles in front of him, “You could have come out with us. Mike and Veronica were asking about you.”

“Out of ridiculous, fake, _conventional_ politeness, yes, I'm sure they were!” Sherlock scoffed, a pale hand appearing to push back his fringe and ruffle through his hair, a clear sign of his growing agitation. His elbow peeked out too for a moment. A bare elbow. As well as a peek of a bare forearm and bicep. “They were glad I wasn’t there. They _know_ me. They didn’t want me there because they knew _I_ didn’t want to be there. It was pointless.”

“... Are you naked under that thing?” Greg asked in a casual tone after a small sip of coffee, an eyebrow cocked in deliberate teasing.

Sherlock shot him a sharp glower, yet answered with a haughty, countering eyebrow raise, “Yes.”

“He's _always_ naked,” John told Greg and smirked, taking a gulp of his coffee and looking over at Sherlock, keeping the conversation somewhat good-humoured, “Honestly. The man spends a fortune on clothes and hardly wears them--”

“I am not ' _always_ ' naked at all!” Sherlock argued, tugging the duvet tighter around his hidden form. Not even his feet were visible. “Nor do I spend a fortune on clothes. I haven't shopped for more than six months. I have enough clothes. I don't need any more and detest wasting money.”

“ _Ha_! Yeah. Explain those fancy silk dressing gowns, then?” Greg retorted around a short chuckle, sharing a glance with John. “How many does he have again? Three? Four?”

Sherlock sighed, “They are not _all_ silk!”

“At _least_ four,” John agreed, happy to see a spark of enjoyment on his friend's tired, drained face, “He's often naked under those too. If he sits down and spreads his legs – which he does when he's in a bit of a mope – there's just this full-on view of his meat and two veg.”

“I never hear you complaining,” Sherlock sniped back with a peevish, smug, sneering sort of smile, his cheeks flushing a light pink. He was irate, not embarrassed. John knew most of the different kinds of blushes that decorated his cheeks now. Knew when they may appear and even how to attain some of them if he really wanted to. “In fact, I remember, quite distinctly, how much you _appreciated_ the view.”

Greg’s brow crumpled in a mixture of bemusement and scepticism, and he spluttered on his current gulp, getting coffee down his chin, “Doubtful,” he coughed, catching the worst of his spillage on his fingers to suck off.

“No. It's true,” John told him, as candidly as he could manage to Greg's slackening and shocked face.

He found that, regardless of his elevated heart rate at the abruptly childish attack by Sherlock in the hopes of rattling him, it was probably the only opportunity John would get to bring the subject up to someone else. To get an outside confidant. It had been a secret, kept solely for them and no one else far too long already. For many reasons. One of which centred on the fact John found it hard to bring private matters up with others and share intimate details. He could barely achieve it with his therapist, let alone mates. Yet with the remaining buzz of champagne from the renewal still fizzing through his system and the subject already opened by a pettish Sherlock, he found the confidence to take several steps forward.

John shrugged, meeting Sherlock's spiteful eye and raising an eyebrow, “Didn't realise you were so eager to share the arrangement with our friends though,” he intoned, keeping their gazes locked as he turned his head to play Sherlock at his own game and finally, finally, get it off his chest, “We've been sleeping together for a few months. Not a relationship, we're not a couple, we just occasionally share orgasms.”

Greg gaped at him for a full minute, maybe more, before he found his voice again, “You... you and Sherlock are...” he murmured, signalling between them and then making a rather crude, if comical, motion with his fingers. Greg looked dumbfounded if a bit elated as if he'd just won the lottery. “ _Really_?—Is he good?”

“I’m sitting right _here_!” Sherlock snapped tetchily.

John smirked around his coffee cup, wondering if he should lie, and nodded, going for the truth, for now, “ _Unreal_. Bendy in places I didn't know the body could bend.”

Greg gave a throaty chuckle in reply, eyeing the lump of duvet that was Sherlock up and down, a lump which was now slumping back into the sofa sullenly, “Yeah. Not surprised by that. I knew he would be. All that dancing and running and _yoga_ \--”

“Meditation,” Sherlock corrected him with a peeved pout.

“Same thing,” Greg said dismissively.

“Hey, don't sulk, this is your fault!” John reminded Sherlock and his pinching mouth. “You're the one who forced my hand into telling him. But he's not bothered – _are you_?” Suddenly unsure, John turned his full attention to Greg in apprehension, hoping he was right about him. “Because if it's too weird I can shut up?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘ _weird_ ’ exactly,” Greg replied, “I mean, I constantly have to stick up for you two at work. People have been assuming things about the both of you, separately and together, since the very beginning! Bets are going on, rumours, gossip, theories, it’s honestly ridiculous! - I didn’t think Sherlock was your type in all honesty, whenever I did entertain the thought that you were so inclined.” He glanced at an aghast, affronted, sneering Sherlock. “No offence intended, of course. I just thought John’s type was more... charming and short and less sarcastic.”

John laughed, giving a half shrug, “I found him attractive the first day we met and only got more obsessed with the bastard as time went on. - It mostly started after the whole pool situation, sort of a 'we're alive' fumble that progressed into a regular occurrence. It's _great_.” He winced after he'd spoken, pushing back into his chair a little, feeling more than a bit bad boasting about his sex life when Greg's marriage had fallen apart. Thankfully, Greg seemed to be more than amused, he was tickled pink.

“ _Lucky bastard_ ,” Greg muttered with a twisting, wide grin, looking down into his coffee, thoughtful and considering. “Does Mrs Hudson know?”

“Little difficult for her not to. Especially when we did it in the hall,” Sherlock drawled with some tinge of arrogant pride.

Darting a frustrated glance at Sherlock's continued attempt to spite him, John sighed, going with it, “Yeah... she's taken to wearing earplugs to bed. - He's a screamer,” he said, hitting back with a bit of his own dig and pointing at Sherlock with a complacent, peevish, tight smile.

Sherlock’s mouth dropped open, cheeks suddenly aflame with chagrin, “I am _not_!”

“Knew that too,” Greg snickered into his mug.

“I am _not_ a screamer!” Sherlock insisted in protest and John braced for his returned attack. “I don’t scream. Definitely not during intercourse with _you_.”

Humming, Greg wagged a finger in his direction, mouth turned up and brow lifted, “Careful! Might give the impression that you’re protesting too much, and you know what people say about that.”

“Hm. And who said anything about ' _intercourse?_ '” John countered, immensely enjoying winding Sherlock up the more and more he flushed. The more he gaped in offence and sank into his duvet cocoon. The bastard deserved it. “You mostly scream when I have my tongue up your arse or my mouth on your cock.” He felt a burn of sudden mortification at the incited vulgar and abrupt response. The overly detailed description wasn’t needed, at all, yet he couldn’t find it in himself to take it back.

Sherlock’s cheeks got even redder, “You’ve done the former only once and you’re not very talented with the latter, therefore neither are scream-worthy,” he shot back.

“Oh-ho! _Brutal_!” Greg exclaimed around a shoulder shaking laugh, leaning back in mirth, a blush of his own on his face. “Not good with the ol’ blowjob, eh John?”

Now it was John's turn to blush, “In my defence, I'd never done it before! I could only go off what I'd seen in porn and what women had done to me. I didn't realise it was so bloody _tricky_. Women make it look _so_ easy and then I'm there gagging after the first inch. - Made you come though, didn't I?” He returned Sherlock's snide stare with one of his own. “Only just got you out of my mouth in time before you coated my face--”

“I felt sorry for you! _Pitied_ you, and so I _made_ myself ejaculate,” Sherlock returned, arching a conceited eyebrow and sighing as if it was a great burden to have such a conversation. Greg choked on another sip of coffee and Sherlock gave John a mean smile. “I am in _complete_ control of my body and have quite the room in my mind palace, full to the brim with arousing imagery. It wasn’t difficult.”

“ _Liar_ ,” John responded with a scoff and a disappointed head shake, looking at Greg, “This is why I prefer it when he has me in _his_ mouth. It gives me a bit of peace and quiet from his endless cheek and _bitching_.”

Greg dabbed at his face with alternating hand and sleeve, putting his mug aside with an agreeing nod, “Shame you can’t do that during cases.”

“Who says he can’t or _hasn’t_?” Sherlock snorted, as he ducked away in a blatant sulk, his fluffy curls the only thing in sight once he buried his face into the swathes of fabric. "We're not _always_ on time now, are we?"

John met Greg's widening and annoyed eyes for a moment, then flicked his attention away, clearing his throat and adjusting the collar of his shirt, unsure how much more of their personal lives being revealed he could take now, “Technically it wasn't _on_ a crime scene...” he muttered, not certain he really wanted to divulge the information, yet finding he really had no other choice now it had been thrown into the open. “It was sort of… _well_ … in the records room at the Yard--”

“ _What_?” Greg exclaimed, half angry and half, it seemed, impressed. “You’ve got to be joking? You can’t have— _Oh my God_ , you did... I can’t believe this!”

“Anderson and Donovan have this – _spot_ ,” John said awkwardly, mouth running away without him in fumbling explanation, “And we, a well as others, knew about this area so, uh, so we— _Christ_ , we were horny, all right? And there was _nothing_ for us to do except wait for your people to come back with whatever documents we needed, so we just... went and 'entertained ourselves.'” John rubbed a hand over his brow, across his chin, and made a vague gesture, figuring he should finish the damned story off. “That's where Gregson found us. Though, um, thankfully he didn't see Sherlock. Not that he could. He was on his knees and there were filing cabinets in the way. He was, _you know_. And God Gregson stood there and talked to me for a good couple of minutes about football, whilst Sherlock… did his thing. - It was the most embarrassing, yet _arousing_ thing that has ever happened to me...”

Dragging a hand down his face, Greg let out a surprised, breathless chortle, “ _Jesus Christ_ , John! - He told me you seemed a bit out of it. That you looked feverish and overworked. Now I know why!” he said. “You kinky sod!”

John gave a short laugh, shrugging one shoulder, “When the mood takes you, sometimes you just have to do it. You must have fallen victim to it too?” At Greg’s tight, grimacing, and embarrassed smile, John let a disbelieving scoff escape him and lifted his brow. “You're telling me you've _never_ had a danger-shag? Or even a danger-wank? You have your own office! You've _never_ been tempted?” He let out another laugh and gestured crudely. "Or a cheeky fondle in the toilets?"

“No,” Greg answered truthfully around his own laugh, spreading out his hands. “The job can be _really_ stressful and I’m never given a moment’s peace! Someone, somewhere, _always_ wants to talk to me. Either it’s someone trying to kiss my arse on their way to the top or someone from the top beating my arse because they get off on the power they hold. There is scarcely an in-between.”

John felt a pang of sympathy and gave him a firm, apologetic smile, “I'm really sorry mate, truly. You deserve more than you're getting at the moment.”

“Yeah,” Greg replied with his own smile, a sad, downtrodden smile. “I suppose sex isn’t everything so... it doesn’t _really_ matter--” Sherlock made a noise of taunting disbelief from his hideaway and Greg’s smile turned down into a purse of frustration, brow following suit in a deep crumple. “ _Oi_! If I wanted just random sex, I’d get it, I’d find it. It’s not like those paths are closed off to me. I just... I wanted to focus on my marriage. Rebuilding it and starting fresh. - Christ, _why_ am I even telling you this?”

Giving Sherlock a warning glare, John sat forward, leaning on his knees with an exhale and what he hoped was a friendly, inviting expression on his face, “You don't still want that though?" he asked, shuffling further forward at Greg's quickly lowered gaze and deep sigh. It was the sigh of a desperate and miserable man, still clinging onto some sort of thin hope. Greg was made smaller by it. A lost, ashen shell of his former self. "Do you think that's for the best?” John made sure to speak carefully. “It seems like your ex-wife wasn't really… _well_ … she didn't seem to be trying to do much to mend the relationship.”

Greg nodded deeply, “I know it _seemed_ that way. - She didn't do nearly enough, don't get me wrong, but she did do _some_ things. She did. She... she was just a bit prickly and overly guilty about—”

“No she wasn’t,” Sherlock interrupted in an irritated rumble.

Greg’s eyes narrowed sharply, “Shut it, screamer.”

Sherlock’s head popped back into view, “I do _not_ scream!”

“You _really_ do,” John replied out the corner of his mouth, still looking at Greg and motioning for them to continue their conversation, undeterred by Sherlock, “You know you always have somewhere to stay here, yeah? Regardless of what's going on, you're welcome here. We have tea and sympathetic ears aplenty – Well, _I_ do anyway. Not so sure about _him_.” He jabbed his thumb at Sherlock. "Can't say he'll give either of them."

“Why should I sympathise with an idiot?” Sherlock huffed and turned his hard gaze on Greg, challenging the intimidating and warning look with an aloof, excessively uncaring, cutting one of his own. “You’re _deluded_. She doesn’t want you. I doubt she ever did! - She took advantage of you, of your trust, of your love for her. She’s a liar and a manipulator. You deserve a _million_ times better.”

Greg blinked at him for a minute, then another, his dark expression fading, “Thank you... I think?”

“He is right about that – as he usually is – you really _do_ deserve someone better. Someone who loves you. Who treats you with respect. Who actually sleeps and, well shags _you_ , not other people,” John told him, standing to take his and Greg's mugs into the kitchen, swapping them for two bottles of beer. They needed something stronger than coffee for this. “Listen, stay here tonight? There's no point in going home. You might as well stay here with us.”

“… Are you sure? I mean, I appreciate the gesture, I do, but won't it be weird? What with you two... bumping uglies?” Greg questioned, eyeing them both as he took a bottle gratefully. “He is naked and _blatantly_ needy...”

“Says the man clinging onto false hope that his cheating wife has any ounce of respect left for him,” Sherlock muttered with an edge to his tone and a sideways glare as he turned his head away.

Greg let out a long sigh, jaw muscles bulging, and took a long, deep, swig of beer, using it then to motion and point with, “Isn’t this complicated at all, this _thing_? Doesn’t it get awkward? - What if you decide to date again, John? Will you just have to choose between an _actual_ relationship and what you have with Sherlock?”

“ _Why_ would he want to date again?” Sherlock asked with a frown, looking at John and shifting. “You would want to date again?— _Must_ you? They’re always so terribly dull and get in the way of _everything_!--”

“Sherlock, _stop_ , I have no intentions of dating for a while,” John promised with an eye roll, feeling a headache coming on, and shrugged at Greg's sceptical eyebrow twitch. He moved with his own beer to pace, slowly, shortly, to the fireplace and back. “I found that I wasn't really _interested_ in the women I was dating, I was...” Sheepishly he cringed at what he was about to admit to. “I was fine, they were fine, and things were good, and then when I slept with them... I realised that I didn't really _want_ to be in a relationship. Not with them. _Never_ with them. I quickly got uninterested once I'd wooed and bedded them, as horrid as that sounds. That's why it never worked out. There was nothing else between us but the game of courting. No spark. No… no reason to stay. – But, with Sherlock, I get to have the sex, no strings attached – Well, okay, there is the _occasional_ strings as he often insists upon a breakfast the next morning – and I have my friend there. I have, um, someone there I have something with. Someone I know and like, despite the moods. Just, yeah, it's... _good_. It's nice. Uncomplicated.”

“Perhaps not complicated. Not now. But these things, they… they _get_ complicated, don’t they? I mean, are you telling me you’d _never_ want a _romantic_ relationship in the future?” Greg asked with obvious growing interest, involvement and mild disbelief. At John’s wavering glance he winced and held up the bottle with a dismissing wave. “ _Sorry_ , I know I’m prying, but... I’m just trying to fully understand it. Just a bit curious about how things work. - Do you get jealous? Is it open so _anyone_ can join?”

Sitting back in his chair, John considered the question as he took a long swig of beer himself, “I wouldn't say _never_ , but I'm very happy with our arrangement. However, I do sometimes miss the romance. The dating and the wooing. He's not really one for romance, he just likes it up him,” he murmured, glancing aside when Sherlock gasped in mocking scandal, yet did nothing to object to the statement, “As to someone joining in... it would depend on the person. We'd _both_ need to agree, and they would have to be known to us. Someone we both trust, someone we know wouldn't be overly clingy or want more than we were... offering...”

Trailing to a stop mid-sentence, mid-thought, John blinked over at Greg, suddenly realising what, or rather who, he was describing. He was describing the Inspector down to a T. Everything they could want with another, Greg had in spades. He was perfect.

John looked at him, really looked, and let himself wonder. He wouldn’t kick him out of bed. Wouldn’t say no. Clearing his throat, keenly aware of the space between them, of Sherlock's observing, knowing eyes flitting back and forth, and of Greg intense look of intrigue, John pushed himself to continue, keeping his tone light and twisting it into something flirtatiously playful. Testing the waters. For both himself and Greg.

“Why? Do you know someone who might be _interested_?”

“No. No, not really. I was just asking. Wondering,” Greg said with a shrug and a darting gaze, rubbing the back of his neck and then up under his chin. Restless and so far oblivious. John watched Sherlock watch Greg, and wondered if the obliviousness was an act. “I don’t have that many friends, not ones that are into stuff that’s outside the norm, stuff that’s new and exciting and a little bit—” Finally noticing Sherlock’s narrowed look, Greg sought out John for confirmation and aid. John tried to express his newfound interest in response. “ _What_? Why are you looking at me like that?” He straightened in the chair, eyes widening and lips parting at John's head slant and sideways smile. “ _Me_? You... wait... _what_? Are you asking if...” He pointed at himself and quickly between all three of them. “ _Really_?”

John looked at Sherlock, just to make doubly sure, “I think I _am_ asking... if Sherlock agrees?”

“I find you relatively attractive,” Sherlock murmured in answer with a flippant tone, eyeing a gawking, and vaguely offended, Greg up and down with a gaze John already knew far too well. “If I agree, could you _please_ do something to both warm me up and put me to sleep? _Now_? Not later, but now. Right. Now.”

Greg stumbled to his feet in an undignified fumble, almost spilling his beer, but managing to put it down just in time, “I, uh, I don’t know about this. I’ve not... I don’t... I’ve _never_...” he stammered, choking on a shocked and uncertain laugh, yet the emotion on his face, the reaction of his features, a reaction reflected in his widening pupils, contradicted the anxious façade. He looked at John, then Sherlock, then John again. “Me? _Really_?”

“I like you. In many ways. You make me laugh, you're smart – no, you are, you _know_ you are – and you’re actually quite easy on the eyes. Always known you were on the handsome side, but now I really think about it and _see_ you in this, um, different way, yeah, you’re _just_ my type. Got a lovely arse on you too, while we’re on the subject,” John teased lightly with a small, brief smile, hoping his relaxed posture and spreading hands would calm Greg down. Put him more at ease with the idea. Just the idea. At least for now. “And you deserve sexual fulfilment as much as anyone. And I think between the two of us--” He motioned at Sherlock then himself. “--We can keep you satisfied. - Plus, you and I can gang up on Sherlock—”

"What?" Sherlock’s arrogant expression dropped to one of annoyance in an instant. “ _No_!”

“I don’t know,” Greg mumbled around a flickering grin, rubbing at his mouth, the nape of his neck, and then tugging on his buttoned shirt. “What if it gets disruptive? I all but work with you two and...” He exhaled a long breath through his nose and looked again between them. “This _is_ a bit...” Greg adjusted his stance, evidently thinking about the offer more and more as the seconds ticked by, fidgety and unsure, but not disgusted. Not put off. Not declining them. “ _Fuck_ _it_. At the very least I can experiment, yeah? Kiss one of you? See if anything... _arises_.”

“Definitely,” John nodded, trying to smother the bubble of laughter floating up his throat, tickled and endeared by his stammering. Flattered by his unmistakable open-minded curiosity. “It's, um, a safe place, as they say. - I'm happy for you to kiss me, if you want to try? More than happy, actually. But don't feel pressured and if it's not for you, then it's fine, it's not going to massively affect our friendship. We're not going to _let it_ affect our friendship.” Greg gave a brisk, determined and agreeing nod at that, tracking John’s every move with greedy eyes. “And if you like it... and it _is_ for you, nothing gigantic will change except maybe you'll be less sexually frustrated and we'll have someone else to play with.”

Greg snorted a small laugh and, hesitating for a moment, took a step over, “All right. A kiss. Just one. A good one. I’ll... _yeah_...”

John moved to meet him halfway, straightening his spine and leaving the tiniest space between their bodies before gently, and almost tenderly, placing a hand on Greg's cheek. He waited a moment, checking that Greg wasn't flinching, grimacing or going to back out, then leaned in and softly placed a light, pecking kiss on his lips. It was dry, chaste, as innocent as kisses could get, but already John was craving more.

“That was…” Greg whispered, caught in the quiet, intimate moment as he swayed between closing the distance again and leaning back. He chose, after a tingling and anticipating few seconds, to lean back and blinked, passing his tongue over his bottom lip with a thoughtful frown. “Not as bad as I thought—Not that I thought you were going to be a bad kisser, John. Just… you know… _stubble._ ”

“Yeah, I get it,” John smiled reassuringly, “I was the same way at first. Everything was strange and new, I kept comparing it to other sexual experiences but – the best way to do this is to forget everything else. Just be in the moment, do what you want to do.”

“Sound advice. Difficult, but sound. - Was Sherlock the first man you kissed? Are you comparing me to him?” Greg asked with a grin and a laugh, self-consciously shooting Sherlock an involving look. Sherlock continued to regard them both like a hawk idly inspects prey. “Am I doomed or was he rubbish?”

“Yeah, first man,” John replied with a laugh of his own, “He was all stubbly the first time we kissed too. It was strange, but not as off-putting as I expected it might be. In fact, it was, um, somehow _incredibly_ thrilling.”

Greg gave Sherlock another look, checking, “And you’re completely okay with him kissing me, right?”

“It was barely a kiss,” Sherlock retorted with a cocky eyebrow quirk.

“And he's not my boyfriend,” John thought he should add, reaching up to stroke a thumb across Greg's cheekbone and stubble, scraping his nail over several strands of it with a fizz of excitement, “It’s not like you need his permission to kiss me.”

Greg hummed, unconvinced and amused, though couldn’t seem to stop himself from leaning into the touch, clearly starved of such contact, “Right, okay,” he murmured, eyes on Sherlock as he lifted his hands to cup John’s face.

He was clumsy at first, unsure and awkward as he grasped and thumbed the hinge of his jaw, then his touch became sure, steady, and confident. Greg’s fingers slipped down John’s neck, up through his hair, before settling on his shoulders, a hot, comfortable weight. His hands were strong and rough from work, skin and fingernails clean if a bit sticky with beer. John hadn’t noticed them like he had Sherlock’s, though he sure saw them now. Could feel their heat and intent even through his clothes, and was powerless to prevent the shudder that caused.

“Okay…” Greg whispered, once again flitting his eyes to Sherlock while leaning in. John tried to convey a calmness he didn’t feel and cradled the warm side of Greg’s throat, letting shaking lips press, timid and light against his own.

That first tentative touch and scratch of stubble shot a scalding spark of arousal down John’s spine, followed by another and another as the kiss deepened, Greg’s mouth parting wet and warm over John’s top lip. He moved his free hand to Greg's waist, holding tightly as he let himself be tasted and devoured. It was different to what he was entirely used to with Sherlock. Though Sherlock could be a little demanding and domineering in his kisses, he didn’t have the same roughness that Greg had. A rugged skill that danced along the line between too much and not enough. It was good. Greg was good. John felt a pang of pity and flare of annoyance at such skill being wasted and not appreciated.

Sherlock suddenly shuffled around somewhere to his side, a heat of presence that slithered just inches from his arm, and so John let Greg’s waist go to reach for him, petting what he could of the man’s bunched duvet to appease the constant need for attention he forever harboured. His focus was mainly on Greg, on the open-mouthed, utterly filthy kiss, on sucking Greg’s bottom lip into his mouth with a soft moan, but he knew better than to ignore Sherlock completely.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Greg gasped out against him in a puff of laughter, moving back with a blush on his cheeks and shining, dark eyes. “You know what, I think I can do this. I don’t know if I’m… _whatever_ , but it’s, well, it’s good. You’re _good_.”

Sherlock scoffed, “He’s had lots of practice,” he murmured, pressing closer beside them, hands fisted in his cloak of plush folds. His fringe was a mess of dark, fluffy curls and he was narrowly peering between the two of them, both with a faint intrigue and suspicious unease. “And I don’t mean with just me.”

“It was very obvious what you meant, yeah, you envious bitch. Nothing wrong with some experience,” Greg replied, squeezing John’s shoulders in reassurance and taking a step back, mouth shiny and red. He turned then to Sherlock, posture inviting and the features of his face tightened in a playful challenge. When he spoke next though, he sounded apprehensive and dubious, a nervousness just lingering at the edges. “Come on then. Your turn.”

“Incorrect. You don’t need me to complete the—”

Greg pursed his mouth and grunted in aggravation, cutting Sherlock off, “This is a threesome, right? Not a twosome where the odd one out just watches at the side.”

Sherlock gave a chunky shrug, “It could be. I have no qualms about it.”

“Liar,” Greg snorted, sharing a look with John and then motioning to him, to his face. John knew he looked as disbelieving as Greg sounded. “See, come on, we know how you can get. Whether you’re boyfriends or not--”

“We’re not,” Sherlock muttered.

“--you would complain if you felt like you were being left out,” Greg finished, signalling to Sherlock’s close proximity. “That’s why you’re here now.”

Scoffing, Sherlock rolled his eyes to look away, though didn’t argue the case, “You don’t want to kiss me.”

“No?” Greg challenged.

“Think he does,” John chimed in, reaching to pat Sherlock’s lower back through the plump fabric. “And he _is_ stepping in on what we have. The both of us. So that includes you. I said before we both have to agree, and I stick to that. It would be weird and downright dangerous if we just went with whoever we wanted without any kind of—”

“ _Oh for goodness sake_ ,” Sherlock grumbled and abruptly took a long, crowded step to press up against Greg’s front, cup the back of his neck, and press their lips together.

John’s reaction to the sudden display was a mixed one. He was stunned, annoyed, jealous and turned on all at once, and he watched, agape, as Sherlock shifted to pull away after the initial push only to be stopped by Greg’s large insisting hand. It pushed down the hood of his duvet and carded through his messy curls, tightening and squeezing at the biggest waves to better adjust Sherlock’s head. John knew what the response would be seconds before it actually happened and he licked his lips, becoming hot with curling desire as Sherlock’s knees obligingly buckled.

“ _Easy_ ,” he whispered, stepping up close to stabilise him with hands-on either side of his covered waist, and tried not to breathe too loudly while Greg used some of his newly found confidence in kissing another man, to render Sherlock into a shuddering puddle.

When Greg let the kiss end, tugging at Sherlock’s lip with a teasing dig of teeth, his eyes were hooded and smug, “So, what happens now?” he questioned with a considerable husky quality. Combing his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, he then gave Sherlock’s rosy cheek an impish, tender stroke, letting Sherlock sway away from him. “Now we’ve established certain things…”

“That all depends on you, really. What do you _want_ to happen now?” John asked in return, leaning over and up to press a warning smooch to Sherlock’s quickly pouting, twisted mouth, “We can kiss some more. _All of us_. Spend all night kissing, if you like, to be honest. Or we could go further and bring in some touching? Start slow. That’s only if you wanted to go that far tonight.”

An uncertain expression rippled over Greg’s face and Sherlock dropped his head to John’s shoulder with a grumpy, disappointed sigh, causing a ripple of frustration to crumple Greg’s brow, “Oh yes, like it’s just that easy!”

“ _It is_ ,” Sherlock retorted with a drawling tone, ignoring John’s pinch of admonishment. “You either agree and continue or decline and leave. This is a threesome. _You_ said it. ‘Not a twosome where the odd one out just watches at the side.’ Choose and choose quickly! You’ve already cut into my time—”

“It _isn’t_ that simple,” Greg grumbled shortly with an aggravated glare, “ _I_ _don’t know_. Part of me is game for it all and is eager – _embarrassingly_ eager I might add – to go far with this, but another part of me thinks kissing is far enough, _especially_ tonight and especially since I’m feeling sorry for myself,” Greg said with a cutting self-conscious chuckle. “But... there was talk of me staying and at least that’s something I know for a certainty I’ll take up. I _do_ need to go back to the flat, though I think I need to be somewhere nice a bit more right now. - I could sleep on the sofa or once you make _this one_ happy, John, we could share your bed? Top and tail it if you like? Nothing else. Promise.”

“Bed sounds good. Better for the back,” John huffed, slapping Sherlock's arse through the padding of his duvet when he saw his lips curl on a sneer and part in readiness for some likely rude quip. He rocked slightly with the soft thumping hit and Greg’s mouth turned up on a roguish, appreciating smile. John replied with a sideways coil of his own and then took a breath, happy how things had progressed and changed. He hoped he’d still feel the same the morning after. “I feel like I have to remind and warn you though, that Sherlock will want certain stimulus before he can sleep--”

“I gathered that, yes,” Greg replied with a snort.

“Yes, I know, but, um, as I said earlier, he’s a bit loud,” he continued, not letting Sherlock’s heavy sigh derail him, “and if you're not sure you're ready for that, for hearing that, then… maybe you could put the TV on or something? - You're more than welcome to come in and watch though or join in if you feel the urge to. That would be… fine. Right, Sherlock?”

“Yes, fine, I don’t care.”

“You’re needier than I _ever_ expected,” Greg said in mirth, watching after Sherlock as he chose that moment to discourteously shuffle away through the kitchen, disappearing down the short corridor to his bedroom without even a glance back. “Can’t believe he waited for you to come back, all angry with how late it was, because he demands to get _fucked_.”

John shrugged, finding it just as ridiculous but far too used to it to care or expect anything less, “He doesn't always require, uh, ' _penetration_.' Generally he just wants me to – pardon my crudeness – finger and wank him off until he’s satisfied.”

“How selfish of him,” Greg replied, voice still tinged with mirth and expression one of knowing resignation at how apt, how fitting, that was for Sherlock’s character.

Shaking his head, John let out a chuckle, surprised he even felt the need to jump to Sherlock’s defence given his attitude, “He's not. Not really. Not _always_. I still get something out of it. - I, um, enjoy the activity and although he’s usually pretty dazed afterwards, he likes and prompts me to straddle him and…” He blushed a little bit, unsure if further information was really needed at this point. “Anyway, I get something out of it and it’s good for him. It’s forced him into a routine where he actually sleeps now. For at _least_ six hours! It's a massive improvement.”

“But it’s always on his terms?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Seems like it tonight,” Greg muttered, eyes jumping towards Sherlock’s room as an echoing sigh of agitated dissatisfaction rattled from within. “Impatient bugger.”

“Yeah, but it depends on the situation. I think he missed me. Though he won’t admit to it. I was out for most of the day, after all,” John said as he gave in to an unmistakable and hard to ignore urge, gently taking Greg's hand to touch then entwine their fingers. It felt good. Different, yet the same as how it felt when his hand tangled with Sherlock’s. John was glad Greg didn’t comment on the action and only smiled, giving him a squeeze. “If we've been on a long case, I mostly just crash beside him afterwards… not up for the trek back to my bed. He, uh, takes good care of me. Covers me up and…” He let loose a laugh at such a random and unnecessary comment, peering into Greg’s face, trying to gauge his wants, feelings and fears. “Do you… want to watch? See how you feel?”

Greg took several minutes to debate such a thing silently with himself, to mull it over in his mind, and looked over John’s shoulder at another utterance of frustration from Sherlock, grimacing for a brief second before he nodded, “In for a penny…” he said in a deep sigh, stroking the skin of John’s knuckles in reassurance, for himself and for John. “I can always leave the room if it gets too weird.”

“Be warned that he might want to show off,” John told him with a grin, “Particularly now you’ve impressed and irritated him in one fell swoop. He'll want to show off and try to make you feel uncomfortable. You know, his normal thing.”

“Yeah,” Greg chuckled under his breath, following after the first tug as John hooked their fingers together loosely and turned off the lights of the living room, walking him slowly to Sherlock’s open door. He allowed time for Greg to change his mind, to both their light hand-holding and the offer of watching. John himself wasn’t even completely sure it was the right thing to do. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Before they got to the door left ajar for them, John stopped Greg, leaning close gently, “Listen, if this isn't for you, _really_ isn’t for you, and you want to tap out at any time, we understand. Take a minute if you need one or just leave entirely. We won't hold it against you,” he reiterated with a low, soft tone, hopefully, soft enough not to be heard by Sherlock. He wasn’t interested in prompting another sulk. Pressing a feather-light supportive kiss to the corner of Greg’s mouth, John smiled, feeling bolstered by the returning purse. “You do you, as they say.”

“I will. If it’s too much I’ll just slip out,” he assured in a mumble against John’s sensitive lips, slumping sideways into the wall with a shaky sigh. “God it’s been so long since anyone kissed me. Far, far too long…”

“If it helps, I never want to stop,” John admitted, trailing after him and rubbing his thumb across Greg's bottom lip before going in for another soft kiss, “But I shouldn’t because _madam_ will start becoming even _more_ demanding.”

At that, he reached to open the door further, pushing it just enough to peer inside and huffing a laugh at the view. Sherlock was spread out naked on his bed, head turned towards them, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched and fingers drumming impatiently against his bare torso. He was almost completely erect, the long, flushed, shiny length of his cock resting up against his lower pelvis, delicate foreskin pulled back over the moist head. John took a moment to take in the sight. He was always such a lovely sight, even pouting with a crumpled brow as he was.  
  
“Yes, yes, I'm here. I’m coming,” John let himself light-heartedly grumble, rolling his eyes and leading Greg through. He paused, just for a moment, when Greg was standing in the doorway, the toes of his shoes just touching the fringe of the bedroom carpet, and let Greg look and process. At Sherlock’s almost growl, John shot him a glare. “ _Jesus_. We have company!”  
  
Greg cleared his throat, gaze jumping away for a second, “For some reason I didn’t anticipate _that_ much skin so suddenly,” he laughed, looking anywhere but at Sherlock, who gave a snarling smirk and bent his legs up in clear invitation, pillow already propping his hips. “You look, uh, healthy. Healthier than the last time I saw you naked. More meat on those bony limbs of yours.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock drawled sarcastically.

Blinking, John frowned, mouth twisted halfway between a surprised grin and a suspicious grimace, “The ‘last time?’”

“Wasn’t aroused then, though, of course,” Greg added in a mutter, eyes flickering over Sherlock’s supine figure. They didn’t linger anywhere until they’d roamed all the way up to his face, only then did they stutter to a stop, seized by Sherlock’s impactful captivating stare. “Is it in some part because of me? Should I be flattered?”

“Yes,” Sherlock rumbled, flexing his abdomen and shifting into a more comfortable position. All in an act to seem more confident than he was. John could tell that much from the lines of his shoulders and fidgeting hands. He was braced for mockery, it seemed, as he had been when John had first seen him whole and vulnerable.

“Why don’t you sit on the bed?” John suggested, pointing at the space beside Sherlock that had been purposefully left and trying not to feel childishly envious of Greg for glimpsing Sherlock’s body before him, “Or you could get a chair from the kitchen, though that might be a bit too clinical. Just – _relax_. Try to at least.”

“Yeah, I’ll sit,” Greg agreed, waving towards the bed and giving John a timid but reassuring nod as they disconnected their fingers and separated. John to the bottom of the bed, running his hands down Sherlock's legs as he went, and Greg to the edge, looming and regarding.

The lube had been left in easy access for John and he made himself comfy between Sherlock’s spread feet with a praising, appreciative clench of one knobbly knee, “ _Clever boy_ ,” he teased, enjoying the way Sherlock's cheeks went pink at the well used, well-loved phrase.

“Praise kink?” Greg snorted as he took a seat at Sherlock’s naked hip, still not looking down but keeping eye contact, a building smug, mischievous expression coming over his face. “I _knew_ that was a thing.”

“Yeah, he likes it a lot,” John said in a purring tone, the mischievousness apparently contagious. He let his hand brush across Sherlock's exposed scrotum, exploration now exceedingly familiar and almost second nature. The intimate touch happened so often that John was pretty sure he could tell Sherlock’s body out of a million others, could tell blindfolded. “Likes to be told he's good, or clever, or brave--”

“Only when he deserves it, I hope?” Greg smirked. “Don’t want to inflate that already bloated ego of his.”

“I _always_ deserve it,” Sherlock uttered with a scowl, arms moving up to fold beneath his head, stretching his torso, flexing and pulling the muscles in his abdomen taut. He was showing off, just as John thought he would, and it bode very well for whatever it was this was going to be. “My ego is justified.”

Greg arched an eyebrow, “Not all the time it’s not. - _Yes_ , you’re good at what you do, no one can take that away from you or even dispute that fact, but you needn’t rub it in our faces every chance you get,” he told him.

“You force my hand,” Sherlock complained with a frown, pointing at him, “you and your team. - What do you expect when you all question me at every turn and don’t learn from your mistakes, don’t use your eyes, your brains, and _constantly—_ _”_

To force the both of them to stop, John picked up the lubricant and noisily poured some into his palm, clapping and rubbing his hands together to spread and warm the gel. Having earned their attention John skimmed one hand over Sherlock's cock and balls, coating, kneading, and tickling, and let his other hand trail down between Sherlock's buttocks. With Greg’s eyes caught with his own, John parted them with his knuckles and rubbed his index finger around the warm puckered skin, Sherlock’s erection twitching under his hand. He smiled, running a hand up and down the hardened shaft, playing with the foreskin and trailing his slick fingers across the sensitive head.

“Teasing and long? Or quick and dirty?” he questioned, the rough tinge of his voice already apparent.

“You were _late_!” Sherlock groused through gritted teeth, lifting his head, face and neck blotchy. “I had to wait and I am _desperate_ to sleep, so what do you think?”

“ _I_ think someone should be a little more polite to the person currently holding his special place,” Greg muttered before John could respond and gave a flitting look at Sherlock’s wet penis and pebbling nipples. “Or do you have a bit of a masochist kink too? - You did like your hair being pulled earlier...”

“ _Shut up._ Hair pulling is not overly masochistic,” Sherlock growled, the colour decorating his skin darkening despite his icy glower. “I thought you were here to watch, not talk?”

Humming, amused and resolute, Greg reached to grasp a handful of curls, tugging enough to cause a soft, curious hiss, “Watch the attitude.”

“Oooh, I _definitely_ like dominant Greg,” John chuckled, a raging bubble of arousal churning erratically in his gut from the display and the reaction. It wasn’t a shocking revelation, as John knew what Sherlock liked, what he wanted, what he positively responded to, but he hadn’t seen it from the outside. He liked it. He wanted to see more from the new perspective. “Discipline him because I'm too bloody soft half the time.”

“St-stop talking— _Ah_!” Sherlock gasped with a shudder, lashes fluttering as John slowly pushed a finger inside, delighting at how warm and tight it was.

Greg laughed through his nose and gave Sherlock’s slackening face a glance, captivated when Sherlock pushed his head into the firm dig of his knuckles with a very small, barely-there whine, “I doubt that you’re too soft, John. You can handle him better than anyone,” he said quietly, turning to suddenly take in the bedroom and then stand, strolling around to rummage through drawers. “Although…”

“Wh-what are you doing?” Sherlock exhaled with a furrowed brow and a shuddering exhale, leaning up on his elbows. “Stop that! - You were invited into the room, possibly the _bed_ , not my drawers!--”

“Sherlock! Stop squirming,” John chastised, twisting his finger and brushing against Sherlock’s prostate to jerk his fidgeting to a stop, “You're going to hurt yourself if you keep on.”

Another press and Sherlock’s eyes clenched closed with a grunt, his body shivering uncontrollably as he collapsed down and pointed at Greg’s impish searching, “St-stop him from disorganising my things! He can’t bully me when he’s—”

“ _I knew it_!” Greg announced, pulling out some handcuffs and giving them a wave. They clacked and jingled, catching the light with a frisky gleam. “How many times must you steal these?--”

“ _Borrow_!” Sherlock corrected around a deep, vibrating moan, peeking through his lashes at them both and swallowing when Greg strolled over, handcuffs dangling from his fingers. “What… are you doing?”

John couldn't tear his eyes from the glinting metal and how it looked hooked by Greg’s rough hand. The man looked utterly fiendish in the semi-lit room, the light from the bedside lamp tingeing the silver in his hair to a golden orange. John found himself licking his lips, entranced, hand still moving on and inside Sherlock, but slowing to assess the situation, to wonder what Greg was scheming. Was he joining in? Was that what this was?

He paused at the side of the bed and then reached out, deliberately unhurried, to take Sherlock’s nearest wrist in hand, “Come now, surely it’s _obvious_?”

“You—”

“ _Dominating_?” Greg answered finally, slapping one handcuff on and flashing John a charming, devilish grin as he pulled Sherlock’s long, pale arm up, letting the other cold, empty cuff brush against bare flesh. Sherlock gaped up at him, shaking faintly. “Disciplining? Putting you in your place? Messing about? Pick one. All of them pretty much sum it up.”

“Oh, good lord,” John breathed with a laugh, dizzy and hot from another overpowering spike of arousal, cock fully erect within the confines of his jeans, leaking at the way Greg stroked Sherlock’s bicep and cradled his elbow.

He was looming, looking strong and self-assured, his calm demeanour only adding to the lustful image. Greg tightened the cuff with a deft movement and John's mouth watered at the sound Sherlock emitted in reply, blinded by the influx of various options that were presenting themselves from the addition of the equipment.

“I, um, must admit that this is _really_ doing something for me…”

“Yeah?” Greg questioned with a stunned, pleased look, lips twisting up higher into a rather boyish smile.

He watched John nod with some delight and then reached down to tap Sherlock’s clavicle with his index finger, signalling him to lean up with a sweeping hand motion. It took a bit, a few seconds or so at least before Sherlock pushed his way through the fog of want that was clearly clogging up his mind. Once he’d moved and shifted enough, Greg took the other arm to handcuff both wrists behind his arching back.

“Is it the handcuffs?”

“ _You_ with the handcuffs,” John practically gushed, close to drooling. Sherlock let loose a needy, impatient sound while Greg gently lay him down again, more pillows added for comfort, and John glanced at him, adding a second finger alongside the first, stretching him wider. “Being in charge of him, keeping him in line. It's – _very arousing_.”

“Only in this situation though,” he said around a bark of laughter, becoming more and more at ease with the entire situation now that he’d found something to focus on, something to both bring him closer to them and put him at a distance. “Not when we’ve been on crime scenes. Can’t actually, _truly_ , keep him in line. I doubt even these would do outside of this room, right, Sherlock?” Sherlock’s face went a dark speckled red, erection jumping and leaking against John’s hand, and he clenched his jaw, blatantly trying not to sullenly, angrily, pout. “If it was _this_ simple, I would have done it years ago.”

“Yeah, just here…” John nodded, shuffling into a better position to thrust his fingers in and out faster, stretching them, scissoring them and occasionally prodding at Sherlock's prostate, “I… I'm imagining _a lot_ of uses for them. A lot of things we could do…”

“Yeah? Like what?” Greg inquired, his gaze unable to prevent the pull of curiosity and building passion when Sherlock gasped out a loud, chocked groan, head tipping back to display the line of his straining neck. Greg looked. Looked at it all. “ _Fuck._ He really does like that, doesn’t he?”

“ _Loves it_ ,” John agreed, pumping at Sherlock's weeping cock, gaining courage himself and loosening thoughts he’d normally keep locked back, keep buried, to let them run free over his tongue, “And, uh, as for what, I… I was thinking him in handcuffs over your knee mainly. You spanking him whilst my – whilst I’m in his mouth.” His rhythm stuttered at the thought and he had to take a few breaths, turning his eyes down to the floor, to Greg’s shoe just in view. Once back in control and calmed from the abrupt yearning to see that idea through, right that moment, John returned to his task and caught Greg’s gaze again. “Or tied up against the bed where we can use him again and again and _again_ , keeping him edged all through the night…”

Sherlock’s breath hitched on a whimper at that, thighs quaking, abdominal muscles tensing, face crumpling in drawing pleasure and Greg blinked, pupils blown and cheeks red as he, apparently somewhat impulsively, covered John’s hand on Sherlock’s bulging, hardening length with his own, squeezing firm and hard and quick. It shocked all three of them. Rendered them all speechless. Greg stared at his hand, at John, at Sherlock, and then frowned with a faint tremor, one that rolled through his entire body. A quiver like those of a big cat, oversensitive and eager for movement. Pent up with energy.

“… No. No, you’re not allowed to come yet,” he told a panting, bucking Sherlock. Surprised at the words coming out of his mouth, but only briefly. Sherlock distracted him with an almost feral gnashing of his teeth and a honey-thick groan. “ _Christ_ , you’re a right kinky sod, aren’t you? - Was it what John was doing or what he was saying?--”

“ _You_ don’t get to tell me when I can and can’t ejaculate!” Sherlock growled, thrashing for a few moments more, legs trembling, stomach shivering. “The entire point of this is to _allow_ me climax. To aid me. Why prolong it?”

Greg took another handful of messy, errant curls for a momentary tug and smiled, “Oh hush up,” he replied and covered Sherlock’s snarling mouth with his other hand. He received a sharp glare for his trouble, but Sherlock didn’t fight him, merely began breathing hard through his nose. “You patently liked what was being said. Don’t you want to give some of it a try? - Edging is different with company. Probably more enjoyable.”

John glanced between the two, arousal increasing deep in his stomach, “If you _really_ want us to stop, lift your left leg into the air,” he told him after several seconds had passed, watching Sherlock's lower half intently for so much as a flinch of dislike. There was none. All Sherlock did was curl and flex his toes in evident excitement.

Eyebrows lifting, Greg ruffled Sherlock’s hair with a grin, exhaling in hilarity at the weak scowl thrown his way, “You know as well as I do that you can stop this and probably get out if you wanted to, and, as you said earlier, you’re in _complete_ control of your body,” he mumbled releasing both Sherlock’s mouth and John’s hand, then giving a testing, playful wink. Sherlock shot a small, soft, pleased smile in response, blushing. “ _Good boy_.”

“ _God_ , you're both going to kill me,” John jokingly complained as he started up a slower rhythm, enough to keep Sherlock writhing as he took the two men in, soaked in the knowledge that it was happening, that he was allowed this. He had never thought of sharing himself with two, never mind them sharing themselves with him. “He loves his nipples being played with, by the way.” John nodded towards the hardened, pale pink nubs and quirked a brow, trying to convey just how much Sherlock liked being touched there with that small, fleeting movement. “Makes him all wiggly and pretty--”

“I do not ‘ _wiggle_ ,’” Sherlock argued in a breathless, ragged moan.

Leaning closer, Greg tilted his head, “Nipples? _Really_?”

“I don’t see what’s so surprising about that—”

Greg reached over, singling one nipple out and pressing, then circling, amazed at Sherlock’s explosive curving and shifting, “ _Huh_! Mine aren’t that sensitive…”

“It’s not often that men's nipples are, no,” John replied, giving Sherlock's prostate another tap and smiling at Sherlock's open-mouthed expression of pleasure, “But they are for him. Half of that is just personal erogenous zones and another, I think, is because he was so unused to sexual touch before, except his own. All these sensations are still relatively new to him, and he's _extremely_ sensitive. - My own nipples are rubbish, can barely feel a thing--”

Growling huskily, Sherlock gave John a weak glare, “ _Stop_ talking about me like I’m not here…” he trailed off into a wet, keening, wanton hum, eyes rolling back. He became exceedingly verbal then, trapped between Greg’s tickling, teasing, rough fingertips at his nipples and John’s hands-on and inside him. “ _Ah_! Yeah… yes… ah _God_!” His cries and moans filled the room, his legs dropping open and hips rutting up, every inch of Sherlock’s normally pale skin, from his cheeks to his thighs, now a deep rosy pink. “ _Yes_ \--”

“I’m not going to be able to un-hear this,” Greg mumbled under his breath.

“Yeah. It’s good, right? New and shockingly human for such a brilliant, otherworldly man,” John said breathlessly, watching Sherlock squirm happily at the compliment. Every thrust of his fingers stimulated Sherlock now, pushing him ever closer to orgasm, as John’s other hand teased out an abrupt and copious amount of pre-come. It dribbled across Sherlock's lower abdomen, curving over his waist and down to the covers below. John momentarily berated himself for not making sure there was something other than the bedspread to catch the mess. “If I still wanked as regularly as I used to, I would use this sound time and time again.”

Greg hummed in faint agreement as Sherlock’s entire body began to shake, his cock giving a visible warning throb, “ _Hey now_ , we didn’t say anything about coming, Sherlock. Stop. _Sherlock_ , stay still and stop moving. - Use that so-called control that you say you have.”

John nearly whimpered in sympathy, knowing how utterly frustrating it must be to stop whilst on the very edge of bliss, and had to admit that Greg was surpassing all fantasies, “He hasn't come for two days. He's desperate,” John whispered gutturally, fixated on Greg, “Can practically feel how much he needs to come. - I've never felt his cock so hard…”

Greg looked Sherlock over and licked his lips, plainly interested in what was happening though not enough to fully engage, not enough to join in as much as John wanted him to, not yet, “Are you _desperate_ , Sherlock?”

“No,” Sherlock forced out in a strained mutter, temples sweaty and arms tensing, every muscle stiff and juddering. He glanced up at Greg for a second, pupils massively dilated and lips parted, and clenched his toes in anticipation, body tight, still painfully close to toppling over into a blinding rush of pleasure. Greg stared back at him, calmly wild with power. Gulping noisily and taking a gasping breath, Sherlock relented all at once and submissively bared his throat, seeming altogether very tipsy and willing. “ _Yes_ …”

“ _Good_ ,” Greg nodded, almost to himself, and then brushed his hand up Sherlock’s chest, along his throat, and over his ear to sink into his hair. “Why don’t you beg John to let you come then, eh?”

John moaned in response, head falling back and hips thrusting out in an attempt to rub against one of Sherlock’s legs, his cock trapped and sore against the inside of his jeans, “I… I’d like that. _Tell me_ , Sherlock,” he bit out. John internally cursed himself for not getting naked when he had the opportunity. His cock ached with the overwhelming urge to be touched, to be pressed deep where his fingers lay, caught by Sherlock’s ravenous body, even as Sherlock shook his head, stubbornly mischievous and disobedient. “ _Sherlock_.”

“He wants to hear how desperate you are,” Greg ordered with a nod in John’s direction, calm, collected, and unexpectedly devilish. He leaned down to put his lips to Sherlock’s ear, the tip of his nose nuzzling at a small soft cluster of glossy coils, and eyes hooded, dark, and focused. John couldn’t believe it was the same man who had earlier been so unsure and befuddled. “He _deserves_ to hear it--”

“I don’t beg,” Sherlock answered back, enunciating each word as if they tasted bitterly sour in his mouth and frowning in outrage when such a tone prompted Greg to pluck John’s hand from the hot, throbbing cock in his grasp. It almost physically hurt to let go, but John let himself be taken and guided, revelling in the sight, the knowledge, the sensation of Greg’s skin getting moist as Sherlock’s pre-come was shared between them. “I’m _not_ begging.”

Greg shrugged nonchalantly, a hint of enjoyment shivering over his face, “John, take your fingers out of him--”

“ _No_ , no!” The exclamation was thunderous as he slammed his legs together to try and trap John’s hand in place. Greg tried to intercept, but Sherlock was swift and John was too lost in the humid fog of arousal to move as fast as he needed. The sudden clasp of thick, sweaty, hard thighs hurt. Hurt in the best way. “Don’t!”

John, with some difficulty, worked to slide his fingers away from Sherlock's prostate and kept just the tips inside him, just barely penetrating, unable to withdraw completely, yet enough to stop all wanted stimulation, “You heard the man.”

“ _Please_!” Sherlock shouted, loud enough to make Greg wince and laugh at the volume, veins bulging in his throat. He even tried to look down his body at John, no doubt to try and work his charm, but his head was yanked back by Greg’s tight grasp on his hair. It made his length thicken with a jolt. “Please let me. _Please_! Th-this isn’t fair!--”

“Please what, Sherlock?” Greg interrupted with a wicked gleam in his eyes while he regarded his own hand disentangle from John’s to flat out over Sherlock’s heaving stomach, gliding up to encircle his displayed, vulnerable, and ruddy neck. His thick fingers tensed, experimenting, and Sherlock sucked in a harsh, stuttering breath. John was enamoured. “What is it you need?”

“I don’t have to say it—”

“Please _what_?”

“Oh _God…_ please…” Sherlock whined through his gritted teeth plaintively, breathing heavily. “ _Please_ let me ejac—”

“Say it how we want you to say it,” Greg cut in with a tut and a fisting tug of Sherlock’s hair, arching his head further back against the pillow.

John could tell he was really getting into his role with what they were doing, their open agreement, and he found himself inching forward to pant against Sherlock’s knees as Greg’s face got red with want. There was a visible bulge in his trousers, big and thick with promise. It was ignored, though unmistakeable. Greg hissed passed a hungry grin and couldn’t seem to stop himself from trapping the lobe of Sherlock’s ear between his teeth.

“Come on, say it.”

“I… I don’t need to be so _vulgar_.”

“Mm, that’s what John and I want. Say it.”

“It’s _unnecessary_ \--”

“It’s _very_ necessary. That’s if you really want to come,” Greg throatily laughed, sweeping the hand from Sherlock’s throat to rub light, large circles over his chest, rolling flushed nipples under the rustling, rough texture of his palm. “You’re a filthy, _naughty_ bastard though, aren’t you? Purposefully dragging this out. - If you wanted more edging, you only had to ask.”

“I don’t want—”

“Then say it.”

“ _Lestrade_!”

“ _Sherlock_.”

Puffing out a laboured exhale, wrapped within a spectacular mewl, Sherlock shimmied in a wanton fidget and flicked his pleading gaze between them, “John… _please_. Please let me come,” he gasped, legs shaking and opening again with a beseeching roll of his hips. “I need to. I’ve needed it _all day_. Please. Please, let me come…”

Keeping his eyes on a triumphant and visibly turned on Greg, John thrust his fingers back inside Sherlock, curling them immediately to press hard and fast against his prostate, whilst he reached for his cock again, pumping in a mirroring rhythm. It felt like he’d connected a circuit, each point of contact to Sherlock’s body anchoring them all together in a rush of energy and stimulation. Greg let out a low thrumming sound from deep in his throat and tipped further into and over Sherlock, mouthing unexpectedly at the rapid pulse in his neck and groping at his toned pectorals. He even had one knee up on the edge of the bed now, eager to be participating. John felt himself pulse slickly in his pants at the resulting scrambling. He had to take hold of Sherlock’s waist to pin him in place.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Greg chocked, sounding like he’d just been physically hit with the realisation of what he was doing. He didn’t stop though, scarcely even paused, only got a strong arm under Sherlock’s shoulders to heft his upper body up for easier access, cradling and tipping his head back to expose the long, tense line of his neck for Greg’s mouth again.

Sherlock's face crumpled in bliss, deafening noises erupting from him. Noises that were far beyond normal mere cries and desperate wails, and they only got louder, more animalistic and amped up the sexual tension in the room. They infected Greg, bringing his gnashing teeth, lathering tongue, and mashing lips down to Sherlock’s collarbone, then lower, until Greg was huffing against a nipple, snaking a trembling lick across it to a delicious response. Again John had to hold Sherlock down, jostling all three of them up the bedding.  
  
“ _Kiss him_ ,” John said, voice foreign and deep to his own ears, “Kiss him when he comes… he's close.”

Greg blinked out of his daze, nose and mouth pressing into the side of Sherlock’s angled head, “Me? Won’t he want you to do it?” he asked over Sherlock’s boisterous keening, adjusting his hold with a hand skimming the moisture he’d left behind. Sherlock arched into it as much as he could and groaned desperately, eyes rolling up and muscles giving their familiar tightening around John’s fingers. He looked out of it. Succumbed to the building spike and twisting ache of his nearing climax. “You and he--”

“Kiss. Him,” John insisted, looking them between Sherlock and Greg as he worked his fingers faster. “He'll want it.”

Hesitating for just a moment, Greg glanced at Sherlock’s grimacing flushed face and perspiring brow for several studying seconds, before he rearranged him on the pillows and swooped down with a long, gravelly breath against Sherlock’s wet, parted lips, “Do you want it, you greedy boy?” he whispered, not having the time to really be satisfied with the imploring moan as Sherlock arched up for him.

Their sealed mouths muffled Sherlock’s next several outcries and progressively loud screams of exhilaration, and Greg hummed in pure enjoyment, peeking through his lashes as Sherlock’s cock went rigid and increasingly engorged, spilling copiously up his shaking stomach in strong, arcing lines. John couldn't tear his eyes away. Their kiss was ferocious in a way John had never witnessed, elongating Sherlock’s orgasm for a minute longer than what was usual. He pulsed over John’s hand soaking his skin, the sleeve of his jumper and the bedsheets. It was maddening. Perfect yet maddening. Not something John was satisfied with, he needed more.  
  
“Sherlock…” he moaned, carefully removing his fingers so not to overstimulate him, “Sherlock, can I fuck you? I need… I _need_ to.”

With a breathy affirmative sound, still not entirely grounded from his pleasure high, Sherlock nudged Greg back, lips left red and slick, and nodded, “Yes,” he husked, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“ _Christ_ … are you sure that’s a good idea?” Greg questioned, coughing away the rough, sultry edge to his voice, breathing unsteady. He didn’t try and stop things though, instead, he stepped away from the bed with a vague gesturing, heading towards the bedside table. “Do you have condoms?”

“Top drawer,” John directed and wiped his hands on his jeans as he climbed off the bed, itching to strip.

“Not many left, I see,” Greg stated with a chuckle as he took a line of four out, pulling one loose to throw towards the bed while John struggled with the buttons of his shirt.  
  
It took John a few moments to undress thanks to his shaking hands and in that time Greg sat Sherlock up to uncuff one of his hands, stretching, rubbing and rolling both arms before pressing him back down to the bed and throwing them limply above his head. The freed wrist was secured again, the link between each cuff seized by Greg’s hand. Sherlock watched through fluttering eyelids, still breathing rapidly. It earned him a rough, stubble grinding nuzzle, cuffed wrists tugged and twisted to elicit a beautiful arch of his back, then Sherlock was kissed, hard, rough, and with some almost palpable passion.

The show drove John wild, evoking a few inelegant fumbles and a torn zip, but soon he was bare and showing himself proudly to Greg’s widening eyes. His cock was thick and hard, drooping heavily between his thighs, and he knew what he must look like. Though there was a wincing, embarrassed part of him that was self-conscious and unsure of the sudden leap, another part of him was preening over the attention and response he’d already gathered with his nakedness, and glad that he’d recently groomed for an impactful impression. He was exposed, completely nude, in front of someone he’d not to long ago only seen as a friend. It felt like the pool situation all over again, only with more bodies and less pawing.

Greg reached to hook a hand, almost instinctively, under Sherlock’s knee as John stepped towards them, bending the leg enticingly enough to lift Sherlock’s hips, “ _Bloody hell_ ,” he muttered hoarsely. “I knew you’d be big but…”

John couldn’t help but smile timidly, well aware that he was beyond average in both girth and length, especially for his stature. His other sexual partners had shied away from taking him all, and he certainly had never been allowed to do anal sex with a partner, until Sherlock, of course. His eyes had lit up the first time he’d seen, immediately impatient to have it inside him. John hadn’t been sure if he would ever fuck anyone else again after such delights as having Sherlock on all fours with himself fully sheathed inside. It had been heaven. Addicting and worth repeating for as long as he was able.  
  
Rolling on the condom, John added more lube than was strictly required before shuffling closer, positioning and aligning himself, gently pushing the bubbled tip of his covered cock inside, “Okay?” he asked Sherlock, watching glazed eyes meet his, “Doesn't hurt?”

“No,” Sherlock rumbled, body relaxed but muscles still twitching. “ _Take me, John_.”

John bit his lip as he inched forward, pushing in more and more, pushing deep, a husky moan dangling from his parting mouth, and the squish of lube obvious and lewd in the quiet lull. The hot, tight tunnel of Sherlock’s submitting desirous body sent John's head spinning, almost spiralling him into the whirlwind of orgasm too early. He wanted to enjoy it first, just for a few moments more. Wanted to draw it out. Wanted to fuck fervently into pleasured oblivion. So he gripped Sherlock's thighs, forced himself to calm, not to push too quickly, and glanced upwards, meeting Greg's eyes.  
  
“He's going to get louder,” he warned, sharing a sharp, wanton smile with Greg as he rolled up into Sherlock, starting slow, teasing, soft, before taking both men by surprise and snapping his hips forward. It sent Sherlock jerking up the bed with a high pitched whine, one he repeated when John began a rhythm of quick, rough jerks of his hips.

Greg was transfixed with the sight, standing as still as stone beside the bed as John bent Sherlock in half, bucking and grinding into him, “ _Fuck_ ,” he exhaled in a rush, curse mingling with Sherlock’s noisy humming and mewling and howling, caught as he was between the fraying, vibrating line of pain and pleasure, within the bindings of oversensitivity, wrists still cuffed. “This is…”

“He— _God_!” John groaned, head falling forward as he continued his brutal pace. “He might come again. If you keep touching his nipples – He likes it when he comes a second time, don't you, you clever boy? He's amazing, he's so _fucking_ _clever_ when it comes to his orgasms. He can come twice. He can…”

“Twice?” Greg repeated in a strangled tone and launched himself on them both, grinding his stubbly chin into the tensed line of John’s corded arm and reaching out to run his knuckles over one, then both of Sherlock’s nipples, sending him squirming in a wild, bucking frenzy. His muscles clamped, shuddered and squeezed deliciously around John’s penetrating cock, clinging to him, determined not to let him go. “Yeah… _fuck_ , just look at him.” Greg’s mouth moved up, nose and brow knocking hotly into the side of John’s head, teeth snagging hold of his ear, the hinge of his jaw, and then bottom lip. “Hold him down.”

John’s nearest hand was taken, guided, and made to encircle around Sherlock’s curved neck, a pressure encouraged and a sucking kiss shoved into the skin behind John’s ear. It motivated John to lean further, nudging Sherlock’s hips up and bending him, each slap of John’s thrusts forcing hiccuping sounds and gulping breaths from Sherlock’s gaping lips. It only took a few light grazes of Greg’s short nails, a combined light throttle, then Sherlock was screaming out of control, convulsing bodily and spraying up John’s working waist in weak, thin, watery, hot stripes.

John choked on a gasp and thrust in almost viciously, the rippling spasm of Sherlock’s muscles and the rake of Greg’s teeth, more than he could bear. He came deep into him, coating the condom which separated them with a shudder and a groan. His vision went hazy, his head spun, and he was left violently trembling, body collapsing into Greg’s curling arms.

A breathless jumble of sweetly rough, complimenting words were murmured and brushed against his perspiring temple as he was lowered down to lie on Sherlock's panting torso. Blissed out and euphoric, John pressed a kiss to Sherlock's wet hairline, shivering when Greg moved in to breathe the both of them in as if he couldn’t help himself.  
  
“You okay?” John whispered, lifting his shaky hand to wipe away a stray tear which had slipped down Sherlock's cheek. He leaned sideways into Greg for some stability and grounding, amazed and happy it had such a positive effect. Greg nosed at his fringe and stroked at some puffy mounds of Sherlock’s dark curls. “It's alright, we're here. Not going anywhere.” John tilted his head to look at Greg with a weak, loopy smile and gestured with his chin. “Lay down beside him and just touch him a little. None sexual areas, obviously. He… he needs a soft touch after something like this.”

Greg frowned in amused sympathy and nodded, shuffling around to slip onto the bed at Sherlock’s side, reaching to pet back his fringe, “Is it always like that between you two? Always that… _intense_ and loud?” he murmured, glancing between them and then giving a breathy laugh. “It’s… quite something.”

“No, it’s not,” John laughed, pulling out of Sherlock as gently as he could to lay at his other side Sherlock, condom still comically attached. He leaned over, snuggling under Sherlock’s still extended arms, and rubbed across his twitching, tensing, heaving stomach, smearing in the ejaculate. It made Greg’s eyes droop in evident lust. “We haven't been together, _like this_ , for a few days. It always gets more intense if we've left it a while. - Plus, you know, you were here, so that made it different. _S_ _exier_ , if you will.”

Sherlock blinked languidly, gaze unfocused until he glanced down and gave a complaining grunt, “Made a mess of the bed,” he slurred, voice raspy. He looked at John, then at Greg, cheeks flushing anew, though he tried to ignore it and be stern. It was an utter failure on his part. “That’s your fault. _Both of you_. Could have been quick and simple, but _no_ …”

“You loved every moment, so shut it,” Greg replied with a sigh, combing his fingers across Sherlock’s scalp and tucking his palm under the back of his head. “And you _really_ are a screamer.”

Pouting, Sherlock rolled his eyes and defensively, shyly, bent his arms down to try and hide his face in his elbow, “This was _different._ I was overstimulated. There were two of you and one of me! You can’t base whether or not I’m a consistent screamer on this one night.”

“Nope, though there are many more nights to come where we can experiment… hopefully,” John chuckled, making sure to keep his tone light and airy, looking at Greg, at his flushed face, dilated pupils, shimmering brow, and elevated breathing. He was still aroused and hadn't had any sexual relief. Hadn’t even asked for it. John felt a slither of guilt and chagrin. “Do you want me to uh… I could… I know he said I was no good at it, but I could maybe suck you off? If you want?”

Greg’s coloured cheeks got a shade darker yet he shook his head with an indecisive cough to clear his throat, “No, that’s, um, that’s all right. I don’t think I can or should go that far tonight. I’m fine,” he said. “It’s all good.”

“Okay, well, if you change your mind, know the offer still stands,” John said with a smile, making sure it was soft and showed none of his disappointment. Suddenly shy with the attention of both Greg and Sherlock on him, John shifted and sat up with a grunt, avoiding eye contact, “I better go dispose of this--” He gestured at his crotch and the still glistening condom. “And get his nibs a flannel so he doesn't get glazed overnight. - Sherlock, do you want a drink while I’m up?”

“Just want to _sleep_ ,” Sherlock mumbled, turning his face further into his elbow, eyes shutting with a flutter.

Greg snorted, eyebrows shooting up, “For someone who forgoes sleep frequently, that’s such a strange thing to hear coming out of your mouth,” he teased pulling Sherlock’s wrists down to eye the cuffs and look towards the drawers they came out of for the key, fingertips stroking tantalisingly up into his palms. The reaction to the tickling gesture was immediate and John watched Sherlock’s eyes get heavier with the urge to sleep. “He needs a drink though, John. Ignore his idiocy. He’s covered in sweat and must be extremely dehydrated— _Oi_ , Sherlock, don’t go to sleep yet!”

“Let him be for a moment, I've coaxed him to drink when he was exhausted and barely conscious many times,” John laughed, pushing himself from the bed, cupping his genitals, and hesitating.

Sherlock looked seconds away from fatigued slumber, splayed out, red, and damp with his own essence, and it was too difficult to resist the new routine they had, even under the inspecting eye of Greg, so he bent down and kissed Sherlock's forehead. The quiet exhale of laughter from Greg made him blush, though not withdraw, not until he was satisfied.

“Do you want some pyjamas, by the way? I can get some from upstairs if you like? I normally just sleep in my pants.” John looked down at Sherlock, face slack and eyes glazed. “He sleeps nude. Of course.”

“Of course,” Greg smirked, taking a comfortable and relaxing inhale. “I’ll just sleep in my pants too, it’s fine.”

“Won't be a tick then.”

John headed to the bathroom, disposing of the condom in the bin with a whistle before rinsing a flannel in some warm water, squeezing and folding and wringing. His rosy face greeted him in the mirror when he looked up from his task and he took a moment to stare. He looked happy, healthy, and there were red marks where Greg’s teeth had grazed him, a developing love bite behind his ear, and stubble rash on the flesh of his arm. John swallowed thickly and touched each spot in turn, surprised at how fast the sizzle of renewed arousal ignited.

Leaving the flannel to soak in the warm water, he padded quickly to the kitchen, cooling himself on the tiles and side while he filled a small glass with cold water and returned to rinse and wring the flannel again, walking back into the bedroom, aware of his nakedness as he stepped to the edge of the bed.

The messed up and soiled duvet had been removed, placed for the wash in the corner of the room, and Sherlock, now free of the handcuffs, was tucked up under Greg’s arm where he had reclined against the headboard, combing his fingers through Sherlock’s hair as he waited. John could still make out his rather prominent erection, though Greg didn’t seem to give it any mind, only having interest for Sherlock, and then John when he arrived. A smile was shared between. It tugged at John’s lips as if it had always lived there. It was frightening how easy it all was and it was difficult to shut out his sober and lust-free rational thoughts.

“You okay?” Greg asked quietly and with some emerging worry.  
  
Shrugging it off, John put the water to one side, holding out the flannel to be taken, “Fine, yeah,” he reassured, feeling a jolting flutter of butterflies at the semi-lie.

John rummaged in his pile of clothes, leaving Greg to dab at Sherlock’s tacky abdomen and elegant ribs, and grabbed for his pants, pulling them back on. Sherlock was lightly snoring, lips parted and fingers twitching, lost to his thoughts or a beginning of a dream. John smiled warmly, overcome with affection, and knelt on the bed nearby to regain possession of the flannel, sliding it over the skin of Sherlock's sides, stomach and chest, using a corner of the cloth to wipe his chin and face. Greg regarded him the whole while, keeping Sherlock still and turning him, adjusting him, if John had to chase the wonky path some streaks of come had taken.

Throwing the flannel to the floor after the last bit was swiped away, John shuffled closer and carefully sat Sherlock up, supporting his head and bringing the glass to his lips, “Sherlock. Sherlock wake up and take a few sips for me,” John said fondly as he held the glass to his lax mouth. “Come on, just a few.”

Sherlock stirred, still half asleep, as John wet his lips with a tiny rippling splash of water and then moaned, gulping down several large, gasping, messy mouthfuls, “Careful!” John reprimanded as he coughed and put the glass aside, lowering him back to the pillows. “I'll warn you now, he's a cuddler, a starfish, and the hottest person I've ever known. It's like being in bed with a combi-boiler.”

“How does he expect to get away with pretending to be cold then?” Greg remarked, magnetised by Sherlock’s hair once again and ruffling through it with some relish.

John huffed a laugh and worked the thin blankets beneath the three of them down, slipping under them to draw Sherlock in alongside him, resting his head on his hand so he could see across to Greg, “I think that's his way of asking for sex,” he found himself confiding, sure it wouldn’t do any harm. He’d told and shown Greg far more than he ever thought possible, and was sure telling him one of Sherlock’s tells was fine. “He might seem quite confident, but when it comes to sex, asking for it, he's _incredibly_ shy. Just look at how he reacted earlier. By saying he's cold, I know that he wants me to get naked and get into bed with him.”

“I suppose that makes some sort of sense,” Greg mumbled with a grin, eyeing Sherlock’s naked body for a moment or two longer than necessary. “Right. I’ll… get undressed then.” With a nod, another ruffle of Sherlock’s curls, and a rather boyish glance through his lashes, Greg got undressed without much timidness. He folded up his clothes atop one of the drawers and strolled over to the window in his socks, pants and vest to draw the curtains closed. “Are you sure this won’t be awkward if I decide I don’t want this with you two? - Well, I mean, I want _something_ , but what that is, I’m not sure. If it’s just watching or… um… kissing…”

John felt a stab of dismay, but tried not to show it, after all, what had just transpired hadn’t been half bad, “Of course not. We're not going to hold it against you if you feel its not for you,” he promised, “I still value our friendship more than I want your knob.”

Greg shut the bathroom door and the bedroom door, unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly, giving John a perfect view of his still very much invested cock, then got into the bed with Sherlock between them, “I don’t know if you even want it. Or if you will when you actually _see_ it properly.”

“I… I think I will,” John replied with a high level of certainty, giving it another look as Greg got comfortable, feeling a sympathy twinge in his own shaft. Had he put up with ignoring it so often that it barely registered? John felt infuriated and sorrowful at the thought. “I like Sherlock's, and I… I can make an expect assumption on what it might be like given the balance of your body. - Anyway, it’s not all about the look of your dick. That whole dominant thing you did really, _honestly_ , did something for me.”

“Yeah?” Greg asked, leaning over to turn the bedside lamp off and pitch them into the swiftly drawing gloom of the night. “Was Sherlock the first man you’ve fancied?”

John ducked his head, “No. No, I don’t think so – I never thought anything of it at the time, but since sharing this with him, I’ve had to re-evaluate my life alongside my sexuality. There were… a few blokes that I suppose had a crush on or felt something for, but I didn’t really look into it or ever felt the need to try. Until him. He was the first that I had strange feelings about and the first time I acted on it. Guess I was too much of a wuss before I met him,” he admitted, finding the darkness and intimate setting a balm to his otherwise self-conscious and compromising thoughts.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with you being a wuss. It’s more the fact that Sherlock is… _different_ , I think. Makes you question and ponder things you might not have ever even considered before,” Greg assured him in a whisper, patting Sherlock’s naked back with a fond amusement when he rolled onto his side, fussed in complaint, and pushed his face into John’s chest. “Even this kind of thing. Weirdly.”

“… He likes you, you know. Always has, I reckon,” John said softly, looking down at him and stroking a lock of hair from his forehead, “He doesn't trust many people, especially not with something so _human_ , but he trusts you. Trusts you and wants you to be part of this. Could tell by the way he melted in the living room, the way kissed you, how he responded to you. He'd never admit it – because it's Sherlock and he's a pain in the arse – but he cares deeply for you and _obviously_ finds you sexually attractive.”

“It is hard to gain his trust, I know that much,” Greg agreed, flattered and smiling, big hands smoothing up over Sherlock’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m actually here and… what happened really happened. It’s _so_ bizarre.”

Chuckling gently, John nodded, “Yeah, it feels like that every time. It's been going on between us for months and the shock of it still hasn't worn off really.”

“Nothing is ever boring when it’s to do with Sherlock,” Greg breathed with a wide grin, tipping onto his back with one arm curling up above his head to clutch softly at the edges of the pillow he was sinking into. “Good night, John. Thanks for this. For talking to me and letting me stay and… inviting me in.”

“You're welcome,” John whispered, reaching for Greg's other hand across Sherlock's waist, “And… for what its worth, and because I know you need to hear this, you really _do_ deserve better than her. Goodnight.”

“Yeah. Thanks, John,” he said, gripping John’s fingers back in reply with a contented sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are going to comment about our decision with the length/description of a character's penis and/or lack thereof; with how submissive/dominant a character seems to be to you; or how a certain character should sound, please don't bother. If you want specifics, want things to fit your interests, then either request a story or move on. 
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> 
> [Kittie's Twitter](https://twitter.com/naughtystepkit)  
> [Gem's Tumblr](http://gem-gem-bites.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
